Matthew 25 contains some of Jesus’ most famous stories. Jesus speaks in the parable both to the righteous and the wicked, and to the latter he says, “For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. … Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” This passage has long stood as a perennial call to Christians to stand with the oppressed, with the “least of these,” with those at the bottom of society, those most marginalized by “the system.” I believe that it is this passage which must frame Christian discussion of Arizona’s immigration law.

I submit that Christians must regard undocumented immigrants as “the least of these” in the context of the American immigration debate. Every year, millions of people around the world struggle to make enough money to live, to feed their children, to be able to go through their day-to-day lives with some semblance of security. Many of these people find that they are unable to find work in their own country, and so they seek to emigrate and establish a new life somewhere else to provide for themselves and their families. Pushed out by broken systems and broken circumstances, marginalized by greedy economic structures and ineffective governments, many look towards the United States and its relatively strong economy as offering hope for the future of themselves and their children.

Unfortunately for most of these people, it is incredibly difficult to immigrate legally to the United States. The process is time-consuming, costly, and uncertain, and can thus leave a potential immigrant who is denied a visa worse off at the end of the attempt than at its beginning. Daunted by the difficulty of this long-term process, with fears compounded in many cases by immediate economic uncertainties, many people are put into a situation where they see no other option to provide for their themselves and their families than to enter the country illegally. With no realistic alternatives, they live at the margins of American society.

These undocumented immigrants, truly the “least of these,” are the targets of Arizona’s new law. SB 1070 is manifestly designed to further marginalize these people and those who help them, to make it easier to arrest and prosecute them, to interrupt their day-to-day lives as they work (often in below-minimum-wage-jobs) to set food on the table every night. Rather than try to fix the broken systems that put these people in the situations they are in, Arizona has decided to punish them and ostracize them. Arizona has cracked down on the victims of America’s broken immigration system rather than try to address the underlying problems with the system itself.

I believe that a straightforward application of the message of Jesus Christ condemns Arizona’s immigration law. The Kingdom of Heaven is a kingdom of grace not legalism, of inclusion not exclusion, of welcome not hostility. The Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth is a proclamation of justice in the face of oppression, of liberation from bondage, of love for the marginalized. With this in mind, I ask Christians across America to remember that as they do to the least of these, so do they do to Jesus himself.

[This post was originally published at YourPerspective.org]

The girl dies. Unnecessarily, disgustingly, criminally. She dies. Because the almighty dollar wins in the end.

This seems overly dramatic, too terrible to be true. But it’s real; it actually happened. The girl’s name was Natalie Sarkisyan, and the insurance company was Cigna HealthCare. This is just one example among many that demonstrates an ultimately irrefutable fact: the American health care system is exploitative and often deadly.

Indeed, health care in America has become a form of structural violence. Like racism, sexism, and other forms of systemic oppression, US medical insurance exploits one group (the patients) for the benefit of another (the corporations). All too often, monetary gain is valued far above the lives and livelihoods of the “insured”. This should be unsurprising: it is to be expected that a system based on the principles of greed (capitalism) would fare rather badly at protecting the helpless and defending the weak.

Christians should be especially alarmed by this, for we serve a Lord who stood precisely alongside the downtrodden (Luke 4.17-18), denounced greed and the excesses of material gain (Mark 10.17-31), and stood against all violence (Matthew 5.38-48). The exploitative, violent system of American health care has in many instances come to embody all that Jesus Christ himself combated. It has become a facet of what Walter Wink calls the “domination system”, a system that in the Resurrection is exposed as being ultimately powerless, even if still fearsome.

We as Christians must hold fast to hope. We must remember the words of Jesus in John 16.33: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” [esv]. The Powers of the world do indeed create much tribulation, tribulation which we see in cases such as that of Natalie Sarkisyan. But Jesus Christ has overcome those structures of oppression and evil, demonstrating in his Resurrection the final futility of their attempts to create death and destruction.

As William Stringfellow once wrote, “The essential and consistent task of Christians is to expose the transience of death’s power in the world.” Health care in America has become a system of death; but as a community that attests to the reality of Resurrection in we world, we must continue to expose the transience of that system.

From James 2.14-17:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say that you have faith do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lask daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

1. As George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Though the phrase has become stale and cliche, it remains true. Without learning the lessons of how our nation has failed, we have no hope to succeed in the future.

2. Some will say, “If I’m white, why should I care? Black history is important, sure, but it’s not my history.” But many whites fail to see the full significance of what the civil rights movement accomplished. It made major steps in freeing African-Americans from the systemic evil of racism; but it did more than that. Societal systems of injustice not only victimize the oppressed but also dehumanize the oppressors, forcing them into a role that no human being was ever meant to have. The civil rights movement helped change this. In religious terms, the movement not only helped save blacks from the injustice of oppression, but also helped redeem whites from the sin of being oppressors. Every non-racist Caucasian in the American south thus owes a debt of gratitude.

3. Some will still say, “Sure, maybe I as a white person owe the civil rights movement my thanks. But I’m a teenager. I’m not racist, I didn’t help create oppression, I wasn’t there, I had nothing to do with it at all. Why do we have to focus on it?” This is true. We weren’t there. We didn’t have anything to do with what already happened. But we do have something to do with what happens today. And the sad reality is that racism, like it or not, is far from over in America. It is much, much easier to be white than to be black in America. White people, even those of us who aren’t racist, who had nothing to do with racism, continue to benefit from what sociologists call “white privilege.” We have it easier, not for anything we’ve done (or not done), but just because of who are parents are and who we are. And that is wrong. It’s not our fault, to be sure — it’s systemic, not individual. But if we don’t acknowledge it, if we don’t learn about it and about its history, there is no hope that we as individuals can ever foster the kind of systemic, societal change necessary to establish true equality. It’s not a matter of “feeling guilty”; it’s a matter of recognizing facts that, while not our fault, are within our capability to alter.

Social transformation starts with you and me, and it must start with knowledge of history.

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

There’s not much I, or anyone, can add to that.

The Just War framework is of course a response to the problem of war, but more specifically it is a response to a question that we ask when we are faced with violence or oppression: Is it yet permissible for us to respond with violence? Just War provides a method to determine whether or not we can answer ‘Yes’ to that question in a given situation.

As a Christian and a pacifist, I find Just War theory to be fundamentally flawed — not because it provides the wrong analysis, but because it asks the wrong question. Indeed, if we are asking ‘whether it is yet permissible’ to use violence, Just War is as excellent a framework as any to find an answer. But as Christians, we are inspired by the example of Christ to ask a different question entirely: What more can we still do to counter violence  prophetically, creatively, aggressively, and nonviolently? For that is what Jesus did: he put forward what Walter Wink has called a ‘third way’, neither flight nor fight,  a radical framework wherein violence ‘can be opposed without being mirrored’.

Jesus’ message suggests that almost never will we find nothing left to do.  Christ calls us to a new orientation, a new approach to the issues, a new way to frame the debate and ask the questions. Rather than wonder whether war is permissible, we seek how else we can embody peace. Rather than ask whether the methods of the kingdoms of the world are justified, we strive to live out and make relevant the methods of a kingdom that ‘is not of this world’. Rather than try to conform deeds to Law, we transform lives through Grace.

As Wink notes in Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way, nonviolence is not a matter of legalism or the pursuit of self-righteousness. Rather, it is a dynamic approach to the questions we face. There may indeed be times when we fail in our efforts to provide prophetic and imaginative solutions to violence. But if we start by assuming the inevitability of such a time, by asking the Just War question rather than the Third Way question, then we have failed already.

Principles

1. As a PACIFIST, I believe not only that war is evil but that in almost all situations aggressive, creative nonviolence is better able to bring about justice. This is evidenced by numerous movements and even nonviolent coups in the last century.

2. As a CHRISTIAN, I give my allegiance not to any nation-state, but only to the very political entity that is the transnational Body of Christ. Thus the situation in the Middle East (and in every similar scenario) becomes not an issue of ‘what countries should get what land?’, but rather of ‘how do we establish justice and peace for the victims on all sides?’

Application

Many argue that peace in the Middle East is unachievable because humanity is fallen. But it is utterly wrong in any theological-political argument to consider humankind’s inherent sin while ignoring God’s love and redemption. This is made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, an event as ‘impossible’ as the attainment of peace. As Jesus said (John 16.33), ‘I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.’ The manifesting of God’s kingdom through the Incarnation, and the action of that kingdom through Christ’s Body, makes peace not only possible but practicable. This is seen in the example of not just Jesus himself, but in the political movements of MLK and others. Nonviolence IS a viable alternative to war, a reasonable methodology for justice. And while war has ‘collateral damage’, nonviolence does not create more injustice through its actions.

The idea that “the ends justify the means” is perhaps the most morally bankrupt ethic in existence. It is dangerous, for it promises a false justice that does not require just action, a false peace that does not require the rejection of violence, a false love that does not require opposition to hate, and a false righteousness that does not require the end of sin. It is utterly in opposition to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

These principles make it clear that we cannot see either Hamas or Israel as being in the right. Rather, as the Vatican has said, we must reject both Hamas’ hatred and Israel’s faith in violence as the only response to hatred. A third way IS possible.

Because of the situation at hand right now, we must call first and foremost for an end to Israel’s aggression, for it is that aggression that is creating the most injustice at this time. Only then can terrorism be addressed, only then can justice come for both Palestine and Israel; for violence will never end violence.

Israel and Palestine

My approach to the current crisis then, as a Christian and as a pacifist, is this:

A. Christians must BE the Church and embody God’s kingdom in a world diametrically opposed to it. We must pray for peace and work for nonviolence, that justice may be achieved. This may take many forms; perhaps the best I have encountered is that of the Christian Peacemaker Teams.

B. The United States must end its material and financial support of Israel’s military while calling for justice on all sides.

C. The UN must demand an end to violent aggression and terrorism, dispatch peacemakers, and help to achieve lasting justice for both terrorized Israel and occupied Palestine.

Jesus Christ was a light in the darkness of the world, a witness to peace among nations obsessed with warmaking, and a opponent of oppression in the midst of economic, racial, and imperialistic injustice. We, as his Body, must call for no less.

The study looked at Christian denominations, divided broadly into two categories: Catholic/Mainline Protestant, and Conservative Protestant. Conservative Protestant was further subdivided into Fundamentalist, Pentecostal, and Evangelical groupings. The researchers found that the presence of Catholic/Mainline, and Envangelical churches tends to decrease mortality rates, while the presence of Fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches is correlated with higher rates.

The cause apparently is simple: Mainliners and Catholics tend to be very world-focused, striving to solve social ills as the Body of Christ. Likewise, Evangelicals stress community outreach and socializing. However, conservative Protestants in general tend to be concerned more on the hereafter than on societal problems; hence they are not necessarily as active in endeavors to aid society through human institutions. (I would like to see similar research regarding specifically the emerging church, as societal outreach in this postmodern group is stressed perhaps more there than in any modern denomination.)

It is my hope that this research will be a wake-up call to those Christians who do not see value in “earthly” endeavors. The love of Christ must be demonstrated now, not promised for later. As Billy Graham once said,

The most eloquent prayer is the prayer through hands that heal and bless. The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.

***

[No offense is intended to either atheists or "fundamentalists" (the latter a broad and often misused term) - I count members of both groups among my closest friends.]

Over at unorthodoxology, there was an interesting post about the concept of ‘social justice’ in the context of Christianity. It says:

But Jesus isn’t about giving us what we deserve, but about opening us up to each other in radical ways.

I would much rather hear us talking about “social redemption” instead of “social justice.” We as Christians should be working to redeem society, offering a path toward transformation and the ability to realize that the redemption we seek will redeem us as much as the thing we seek to redeem.

I think that’s a great point. After all, in the Christian view, the entire point of the Incarnation is to save us from just condemnation for our sins. The beauty of Christ’s life is that is he was focused on redemption, not on justice proper.

This doesn’t mean that ‘social justice’ is a concept without value; after all, the God of the Bible is certainly viewed as just. But in the Incarnation, Law was replaced by Grace – and this means that the focus of the Christian life, in seeking to transform the world, must be on redemption.

It makes a good point – all the Olympics protests are symbolic. The American consumer has the potential to make a much stronger statement against China’s numerous human rights abuses.

This isn’t one of those protectionist “BUY AMERICAN PRODUCTS ONLY!!!!!” rants. Free trade is a wonderful thing, even free trade with China. And the current situation shows us another way in which it’s a wonderful thing – it allows us to make powerful statements.

But only if we want to.

When we have the opportunity to buy Chinese products (as we do), refusing to buy such products would send a powerful message – a message much more powerful than that conveyed by picketing torch-runners.

It’s a message we can easily send -
- but only if we want to.